Chushin Gakki Build Quality over the Time?

[john.w.lawson]

Has anyone every confirmed that in fact Jackson fretboards have that compound radius? I'm not convinced frankly. Neither the 12 inch at the first couple of first frets nor the 16 inch at the last ones. But I don't have any radius gauges to check.

I'm not gonna hit this too hard. frets come in a wound length or you can order pre-cut rough lengths. you can use a machine to form the radius or press them in and they will conform to the fret board radius, frets are one height so, its easy to look down the neck and see the radius of a fretted guitar.

[Mechayoshi]

I call late 90s to pre 2006 the Jackson MIJ ‘dork age’. The only time I’ve ever had something remotely disappointing came from one in between those years. Never before or after (not counting post 2012 bc they dropped being made there then). A 2002 RR3 was a dog. Just bad neck. A DKMGT had a misplaced bridge, making intonation shot. A DR3 wasn’t awful, but felt unusually cheap.

Now aside from that? Top tier. All professionals with black hardware or 1995 or earlier will be golden. 2006-12 Should be great too. Again not saying at that the others years are all bad, but that’s the only period I’ve have problematic Jacksons and I can’t ignore my bias lol. MOP for instance disappeared on imports after 95, replaced with ugly looking MOTO. The late 90s to 00s have Duncan Designs or EMG HZ and fugly chrome hardware. Harder to justify if the others have the same going price used. Yeah I’m opinionated, sorry.

[Nightbat]

MOP for instance disappeared on imports after 95:

You make it sound like all imports had MoP inlays, quite the contrary, most didn't (and more than enough didn't even have sharkies)

[metalhobo]

he didn't make it sound like that at all

[Jr.]

I call late 90s to pre 2006 the Jackson MIJ ‘dork age’. The only time I’ve ever had something remotely disappointing came from one in between those years. Never before or after (not counting post 2012 bc they dropped being made there then). A 2002 RR3 was a dog. Just bad neck. A DKMGT had a misplaced bridge, making intonation shot. A DR3 wasn’t awful, but felt unusually cheap.

Now aside from that? Top tier. All professionals with black hardware or 1995 or earlier will be golden. 2006-12 Should be great too. Again not saying at that the others years are all bad, but that’s the only period I’ve have problematic Jacksons and I can’t ignore my bias lol. MOP for instance disappeared on imports after 95, replaced with ugly looking MOTO. The late 90s to 00s have Duncan Designs or EMG HZ and fugly chrome hardware. Harder to justify if the others have the same going price used. Yeah I’m opinionated, sorry.

Interesting! I wonder if anything happened around 2006 for the quality to pick up again. I've only owned one from the "dork age" (dark?) - a 2002 Stars Soloist (TOM), and it was as good as all my early '90s models (own and have owned many from 1990-1993), save for the pansie-thin neck (that's right - thin necks are for pansies).

[ed]

Some of the quality has to do with the part quality like if they gave them shit parts you cant really do much with it. JT-580 trem versus a 1000 series FR for example.

[pianoguyy]

Interesting! I wonder if anything happened around 2006 for the quality to pick up again.

Wasn't it 2005 that they went from the chrome to black hardware. And switched from the HZ passive pickups to active.



Just some theory here:
Jackson's parent company went broke. Everyone knows that before a company goes under, they usually try 'cost saving' measures. This would explain why many of us aren't exactly thrilled with the last round of pre-Fender guitars.
And it took Fender 3 years to figure out what was wrong, how they were going to change them, plus letting current manufacturing contracts expire so they could implement those changes.

[Mechayoshi]

Interesting! I wonder if anything happened around 2006 for the quality to pick up again. I've only owned one from the "dork age" (dark?) - a 2002 Stars Soloist (TOM), and it was as good as all my early '90s models (own and have owned many from 1990-1993), save for the pansie-thin neck (that's right - thin necks are for pansies).

I said ‘dork’ on purpose. It’s a TV trope for when something good gets stupid for a while and then gets its act together later.

It doesn’t surprise me that your good one is a Jackson Stars. The Japanese domestic line (Grover Jackson or Stars) had consistently had upper end options that we didn’t get. They were pumping out models with ebony, binding, nicer woods, etc for instance when our imports were hit or miss with those options or didn’t offer it at all. They do have more basic ones too, but the stark difference if you compare catalogs..




@ed Have you had a lot of hardware issues? Older J-580s might act up, but so may Schallers and people like those. Yes a FR 1000 is nice, but outside of the bridge I’ve not had problems with MIJ Jackson hardware failing. Not tuners or anything. The cheapness to me has to do more with the light rosewood boards, no binding, cheap moto inlays, and chrome hardware.

[Jr.]

I said ‘dork’ on purpose. It’s a TV trope for when something good gets stupid for a while and then gets its act together later.

It doesn’t surprise me that your good one is a Jackson Stars. The Japanese domestic line (Grover Jackson or Stars) had consistently had upper end options that we didn’t get. They were pumping out models with ebony, binding, nicer woods, etc for instance when our imports were hit or miss with those options or didn’t offer it at all. They do have more basic ones too, but the stark difference if you compare catalogs..

Oh I see. I've actually never owned an "import" Japanese Charvel or Jackson, except my 750XL (which is as great as everyone says they are). So yes, speaking from the experience of owning JDM Jacksons (and a Charvel SDK).

Jackson Stars even had a made-to-order system (which seems to have been as custom as the current Jackson "custom" shop). Man I would've done some damage on that if I was buying guitars back then.

EDIT: Great profile pic Mechayoshi

[danim1236]

Has anyone every confirmed that in fact Jackson fretboards have that compound radius? I'm not convinced frankly. Neither the 12 inch at the first couple of first frets nor the 16 inch at the last ones. But I don't have any radius gauges to check.

WTF?!?

Just grab a Jackson and play it. It's a compound neck.
???
?????Take a guitar with homogeneous radius and play.
It's very different.

It's very easy to feel the different radius just doing a chord (not a power chord ?} in different regions of the neck and doing the same in a non compund neck.

You will just feel it.

[danim1236]

No they didn't, not until around 82 and then floyd came out in 83 and it has to have at least a 10" compound radius. It was a guy named Wilson (a worker at J/C) that came up with the radius on Jackson and Charvel guitars.
But for the sake of this conversation, yeah it's on all the models mentioned. Which has nothing to do with neck thickness or shape

Now prove me wrong

Hohoho. You're wrong!

Randy Rhoads Jackson had compound radius.

The thing is they were doing this by hand untill Tim Wilson stopped to build guitars for time and created the conical fretboard machine.

From this time on, it was a lot easier to do the job.

Its not so hard for experts. They use circular rulers with different radius. You can buy one. They use it to measure fret radius.

[danim1236]

You make it sound like all imports had MoP inlays, quite the contrary, most didn't (and more than enough didn't even have sharkies)

Yes. My Japanese guitars don't have real MoP... It's some polymer. All my USA comes with true MoP. The difference is evident.

[danim1236]

Hohoho. You're wrong!

Randy Rhoads Jackson had compound radius.

The thing is they were doing this by hand untill Tim Wilson stopped to build guitars for time and created the conical fretboard machine.

From this time on, it was a lot easier to do the job.

Its not so hard for experts. They use circular rulers with different radius. You can buy one. They use it to measure fret radius.

It's hard even for experts. Very very laborious.
And in the first years, even the neck was more of a sculpture. I have an 86 San Dimas that is like a work of art. Incredible neck when compared with later ones.

[DonP]

^^^

You know you are talking to yourself?